Kickstarter made Tim Schafer “unafraid of being open”, talks transparency

The Double Fine Adventure Kickstarter has done more than simply fund Tim Schafer’s next game, or bring the idea of crowd-funding into the public eye. It taught the veteran developer the value of transparency, something he has compared to his comparatively shrouded work history at Lucasarts. Schafer has even compared the Lucasart’s method to Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory during lockdown. See what he means by that below the fold.

Speaking with Venturebeat at the Rock Band 3 live gig fundraiser Umloud! Schafer discussed the ways in which Kickstarter gives developers like Double Fine a chance to break down barriers and give gamers greater access to studios than ever before.

“It made me unafraid of being open,” Schafer said. “I come from a background… Starting at Lucas, the most closed company of all. It’s like Willy Wonka when the doors are closed. He gets a lot of…Lucas is a very secretive company because of all the crazed Star Wars fans out there. And the regular game development is like, “keep everything a secret and release it when you’re polished and ready.

“The Kickstarter thing and the documentary that we’re doing with the Kickstarter has just taught me that there’s nothing to be afraid of. You release your stuff out. You show a piece of concept art that may or may not be in the game.

“It doesn’t matter. People are just like, “Oh, that’s cool!” People get on your side more, not get on your side less. The fear is that if it’s not perfect, you can’t show it to people because they’ll freak out. The fact is, they just feel more bought in. They feel like they’re part of the development team.”

The site then asked Schafer for his thoughts on being too transparent and making wild promises, even name-dropping one Peter Molyneux who just saw his Kickstarter title Project Godus funded in its 11th hour.

Schafer explained the dangers of over-promising, “I think, if we were like…listing out a whole bunch of crazy features. Like, ‘Hey, we’re going to have this multiplayer mode,’ and then we couldn’t pull it off. That would bum people out.

“But this is just, ‘Hey, we’re working.’ For instance, I showed the very first concept art we did for our main female character in the game. I just put the first one up, then, ‘Here’s the next one; here’s the next one.’ People were voting on their favorites. Some of them were happy with the one we chose in the end and some weren’t, but that’s just the way…They knew that that’s…Not everybody is going to like everything they do.

“But because you’re honest about it, they tend to not…People don’t like it when they feel like you’ve been dishonest with them. I feel bad for Peter because I’m sure, in his mind, he believed those features were going to be in his game when he promised them. It probably broke his heart that they weren’t in the game.

“But to the external viewer, they feel like, ‘You lied to me.’ Which is not what happens from his perspective, probably. I think as long as we’re really just being transparent, there’s no chance for something to be seen as a lie.

“You’re just saying, ‘This is early concept art. It might change.’ Now, Kickstarter makes you put a big disclaimer at the beginning. They didn’t do it with our project. But you have to state risks — ‘This might not happen’ — and all this stuff, just to make that clear to everybody.”

Granted, a large part of Kickstarter is getting investors on your side, so transparency is a vital part of the process. Over in the triple-a market, formally ‘closed-off’ developers are opening dev blogs and releasing dev diaries all the time. Is this a positive trend? Would you like to see more transparency? Let us know below.